Return of the Lady
by Ichabod Ebenezer
Summary: Nth Doctor part 3 of 12. Someone from the Doctor's past returns, and where this person goes, disaster always follows. Will the Doctor be able to discover the plot and prevent disaster before it's too late? And also, a Lady returns.
1. The Lady

Pandora woke up in a car park on Back Church Lane. She was one of a dozen people who called this location home last night. Some she knew, some she'd seen before, a few others she'd never seen, but they were friends of one of the regulars. Thanks to the 'No Second Night Out' folks, there was a decent chance she'd never see them again. She got up quietly and verified her possessions, then threw her bag over her shoulder, picked up her box and stepped carefully around those who were still sleeping or just starting to stir.

She stepped out from under the tracks into the sunlight and took a few moments to let her eyes adjust. She then walked down the road toward the basketball courts where there was a public fountain. She fished a toothbrush out of her bag and ran it under the water, then brushed her teeth.

She rinsed and spit, then ran the water for a while before taking a long drink. This early in the morning and it was already hot. She couldn't wait to see what Summer would be like. She rinsed the toothbrush off and put it back into her purse, at the same time pulling out a stick of gum and popping it into her mouth. She splashed some water onto her face and hair, then ran her fingers through it, ready for the day.

Pandora walked down to the docks where a refrigerator lorry was loading up with the morning's catch. As she approached, Pandora saw a driver she recognized. "Good morning Jerry," she called out.

Jerry was with another man, signing something on a clipboard. He looked up when he heard her calling, and he smiled when he saw her. "Pandora! Good morning. What are you up to today?"

"You know me Jerry, every day's an adventure. Mind if I catch a ride?"

"Hop on and don't mind the cold."

She thanked him and swung up onto the back of the lorry, sitting on the ledge that jutted out from the rear. She reached into her bag and pulled out her tablet. It only had forty percent charge, but it also had a wifi signal, so she decided to download her news streams. The lorry left the docks and Pandora held onto her box with one hand, and with the other, a strap dangling from the side as it turned the corner.

The lorry ride ended at the loading docks behind a market where the Swede was standing with a couple other guys, ready to unload the lorry. The Swede was a large man, well over six and a half feet tall, burley and covered in hair. He had red hair obviously in recession and a proud handlebar moustache with a two-day growth of beard. He was currently dressed in filthy overalls, work boots and long rubber gloves. His magnificent hair and moustache were hidden behind nets.

When the lorry got ready to back up, Pandora grabbed her box and swung down and off, banging on the side of the lorry to let Jerry know she was clear. The Swede came up to her and gave her a big bear hug. "Pandora!" he said in a thick Swedish accent. "Did you come to take Obelix off my hands?"

"Not specifically, but I'd be happy to," Pandora said, hugging him back, arms only going half way around him.

"Berömlig! He needs some exercise." The Swede put his fingers to his lips and whistled, high and piercing. A massive black dog came running through a gap in some nearby laurels and bound happily around him. "Oh, hey. I grabbed a box of biscuits that was too damaged to sell. Do you want it?" he asked as he patted the dog's head and generally tried to keep it off of him.

"Absolutely! I'm famished. Obelix, kom!" The dog tore itself away from the Swede and started jumping all over Pandora. She put her box down and played with him far more energetically than the Swede would. This freed him up to walk to a small truck and lean in through the open passenger side window.

"I also have these," he said apologetically, holding up a tin of kippers. "I hesitate to even offer them because English fish are piss, but perhaps you'll feed them to the dog for me? Or, how do you say, tip them in the bin?" He walked back over to them and handed over the mangled box of what turned out to be digestive biscuits and the tin of kippers.

"I'm sure they'll be lovely," she said hungrily, adding them to the contents of her bag. "See you back around noon, yeah?"

"Perfekt," he said, and returned to his work crew, already unloading the lorry.

Pandora whistled, and she and Obelix left. As soon as she was out of sight, she opened up the box of biscuits and shoved a handful in her mouth. She tossed one toward Obelix who snapped it out of the air. She smiled and tossed him another.

They walked to a nearby park, and Pandora found an empty bench. She set down her box and removed the tin of kippers, turning the key carefully to open them without spilling oil. She peeled one out, shook the oil off, looked at it hungrily, then tossed it to Obelix. He gulped it up and licked his nose, eyes fixated on the tin in wait for the next one. "Now, I know you had a meal yesterday," she said, and ate the next one. The two took turns until the tin was out of fish, then Pandora looked around to be sure no one was looking, and drank the oil from the tin, using a finger to get all the last bits of fish skin.

She started in on the box of biscuits, alternating between feeding herself and feeding the dog, but now she started throwing them farther and farther behind him. The dog happily ran after them, catching them in the air, or hunting them down in the grass. When they'd finished off the box, Pandora's hunger was gone, and she threw the box and the tin into a nearby bin.

She pulled a plastic bag out of her shoulder bag and carefully pulled open the zip-lock top. Using just two fingers, she removed a slobbery, sticky tennis ball covered in tooth marks. She threw it as far as she could with just two fingertips, then wiped them off on the park bench. She put the zip-lock back in her bag, picked up her box and decided to get a bit of a walk herself. Every time Obelix brought the tennis ball back, she'd pull it from his mouth with just the two fingers, strings of slobber snapping back from the ball to the dog's mouth, and she'd throw it as far as she could in front of her.

In this manner, they walked slowly across the park toward the tennis courts. She turned around to look back the way they had come, but Obelix wouldn't have any of it. He was ready to play, not to head back. Pandora reached for the ball, but Obelix growled and pulled his face away. He lowered his front paws and danced to the side as Pandora made a grab for the ball. Pandora set her box down and got fully involved, laughing as she reached around from one side while feinting with her other hand. She eventually got a couple fingers on the ball and Obelix let her take it. She threw the ball, and Obelix ran happily after it.

Obelix ran back with the ball and she had to fight him for it again. "A little help please?" called a voice from behind. She turned to see a man in white polo shirt and shorts with socks pulled up to his knees leaning against the chain link fence separating her from the tennis court. He indicated with a look and a subtle movement of his head a tennis ball laying in the grass nearby her.

Pandora smiled. "Sure," she said and bent down to pick the ball up.

"Thanks, doll," the man said.

Something about the way he said that rubbed her the wrong way. She threw the tennis ball way over the fence, making the man run for it. She smiled and turned back to Obelix, tossing their nice new, clean ball up in the air and catching it. "Time to go, Obelix. Kom hit!" she said, slapping her leg hard. She bent down and picked up her box and set a brisk pace. She threw the ball into her bag, vowing to wash out the zip-lock later.

"Hey!" called the angry tennis player from behind her, clutching a disgustingly soggy ball.

She eventually returned the dog to his rightful owner and decided to spend the afternoon at the Marble Arch tube stop. When she got there, she found Willie the Bucket Drummer playing his reggae rhythms for the commuters, dreads flying to the beat. "Willie!" she called to him. "Mind if I sing along?"

"Don' mind none at'all darlin'. People pay better for a duo, hey?"

Pandora set her box and purse down, then spotted an empty socket and set her tablet to charge. "My lucky day," she said to herself.

When he finished his current tune, she started with a cool and sweet rendition of 'Three Little Birds' with a little hip sway, stomp. Hip sway, stomp. Willie slowed down the rhythm to match. Next they did 'Stir it Up' and Willie popped a drum at just the right timing to add a psychedelic waa-waa to the base line. They ran through 'Pick Myself Up' and 'Red, Red Wine' during the rush hour, then reached the end of Pandora's reggae knowledge and start repeating themselves.

When the crowds died down, Willie started stacking his buckets and pans and Pandora gathered her belongings. They split the money. Pandora insisted on tipping him from her share, and Willie eventually conceded, on the condition that Pandora learn some more Peter Tosh and she sing with him again soon. The two hugged and parted ways, Pandora leaving with enough money to buy lunch for the next few days.

All in all, it was a pretty good day, Pandora thought as she rode the lift back up to street level. She walked the last little bit down the alley behind the seamstress's shop where she intended to spend the night. The lights were already off for the night, so she climbed the fire escape to the second floor and pulled the window open.

She climbed inside, set her box down and shut the window. There was a plate of chicken linguini under cling wrap sitting on the corner of the sewing table. Pandora smiled. The seamstress has always been so good to her. She has always felt like she should do something in return. She thought of maybe tidying up the shop, but it was already so neat and clean. Pandora would gladly drive traffic her way, if only she knew someone who needed a seamstress. Perhaps now that she had the Doctor in her life, he could help her come up with something.

She peeled off the cellophane and found a post-it note attached. She smiled again, and stuck the note to the edge of the table. She'd read it later, but for now she wanted her pasta while it was hot. She went into the little kitchen and got a fork, then tucked in with an appetite she didn't have minutes before.

When she was done with her meal and had washed the plate, she picked up the post-it and realized it wasn't from the seamstress. It read, "Come see me tonight. I've got something cool to show you. -The Doctor."

It had been a while since she last saw him. It had been just after their adventure on the planet Dor a month or so back. She wasn't sure she'd yet recovered from the resulting expansion of her personal world view, and certainly wasn't sure she was ready for another.

She sighed. "This is how adventures start," she said to the note. She considered ignoring it and getting a good night's sleep instead, but finally shouldered her bag, picked up her box and made her way out the fire escape.

When she got to the Doctor's alcove in the city's underground, she found another post-it. "I'm on the roof. Take the lift, then the fire-escape to the top."

She placed her box on the workbench, then made her way to the roof, where she found the Doctor, huddled over a telescope.

She looked up at the sky. The London city lights caused enough sky glow that there wasn't much to be seen, but there was a new moon, so a few more bright dots than normal were visible. The Doctor had the telescope pointed at the brightest of the bunch.

"What'cha got there?" she asked.

The Doctor turned, and smiled at Pandora, nodding his greeting. "Just doing a little planet-gazing. How have you been?"

"Same old, same old," she said and bent to look through the lens of the scope. She saw a bright, fuzzy, yellowish crescent shape. "Is that Jupiter?" she asked.

"Venus. Only planets closer to the Sun have phases like the moon."

"Oh," she said and bent again to watch it. "What's so cool about it that you wanted me to see?"

"This isn't what I wanted to show you," the Doctor said. "I was just passing the time until you arrived." Pandora stepped back, and the Doctor bent to look through the lens for some time as the motors on his Dobsonian scope slowly clicked.

"The Earth isn't the first planet I've taken under my wing. Venus used to be a lush, green world with vast oceans. The Silurians ruled Earth at the time, and the Ice Warriors had Mars. Both of them could take care of themselves. The Venusians were different. They were artists and philosophers. And they were frightfully alergic to raw metals. Add to that the fact that they lived on a world that many alien races would kill for, and well, a lot of them tried."

The Doctor stood up and turned back toward Pandora. "I kept them safe for a long time. And in exchange, they taught me a lot. The only world I'd known before was Gallifrey, and they were so different. Five of everything - arms, legs, eyes, mouths. They taught me to defend myself, and they taught me how a real family raises a child."

"So what happened?" Pandora asked.

"Global warming happened. I was so busy worrying about the alien threats, I didn't notice they were killing themselves off. Not until it was too late, anyway." He fiddled with the focus knob distractedly, but didn't look through the lens again. "Sometimes I make myself look at Venus, just to remind myself that I can't always save everyone."

Pandora felt herself getting depressed and wanted to change the subject. "Well, if you didn't want to show me Venus, what did you want to show me?"

"Ah, yes," the Doctor said, pulled suddenly out of his mood. He took his sonic screwdriver from his hoodie pocket and pointed it at the telescope. A green light came on and the sonic buzzed. The telescope motors stopped clicking, and he deactivated the sonic and stowed it away again.

"You finished your new sonic!" Pandora said excitedly.

"Well, yes, but that's not it either." He pulled the sonic back out and tossed it across to Pandora.

Pandora turned it over in her hands. It was slightly thinner than his previous one and mostly cylindrical. It had sections of alternating brass and dark wood, with a small black, plastic button halfway down one side, and a brass ring opposite it. She placed her thumb on the black button and slipped her index finger through the ring. She pulled back on the ring and four brass claws extended forward from the lens at the tip. When she pressed the button, lasers emitted from the four claws, meeting about four inches in front of the tip. She relaxed the ring and the four claws contracted to their previous configuration, the lasers turned off and the tip glowed green. She twisted the base, and it clicked into several different positions. Each time it clicked, the light on the other end would change colors. Blue, purple, red, white and ultra-violet, then off, and back to green. She let go of the button and handed it back to the Doctor. "So... What is it then?"

"This," he said with a broad smile. He handed her a brochure.

She unfolded it and looked it over. "Hampton Court Palace?" She continued reading.

"This bit here," the Doctor said, flipping it over and jabbing with a finger. "A collection of royal articles belonging to Queen Elizabeth I will be on display for one week only, and it opened today."

"And you are a fan of hers?" she asked, continuing to read.

"Fan enough to marry her. She was my second wife, wait - third, no. Second wife." He took the brochure back and folded it hastily before sticking it in his pocket. "It says the collection contains items that haven't been displayed for over four hundred years! I wonder if any of them are mine..."

"Wait, back up. You married Queen Elizabeth? The 'virgin queen'?" Pandora asked, laughing.

"Well, yeah. She insisted. Attended it twice more for good measure too. Anyway, I've got to see for myself. Gotta be tonight though, so I'm afraid there'll be a bit of the old 'B and E'. Give me a chance to break in the new sonic. Are you game?"

"For a break in on property of the crown? Do I need to remind you I'm trying not to be noticed? Besides, you waited four hundred years, why can't you wait until morning?"

The Doctor sucked in air through his teeth and scratched at his hair, "Yeah... I'm going to want a closer look than they'll allow the general public. One of those pieces might be the ring I gave her, and if she's not using it anymore, I might want to have it back. The stone in the setting isn't quite from around here."

"I don't know, Doctor..."

"Come on! It'll be fun. Wouldn't you love to hold her royal sceptre? Just for a moment, of course, you'd have to put that right back." He paused, awaiting her response, holding her eyes with a big excited smile.

She tried to picture herself with the jewel-encrusted sceptre in her hands, and had to admit it would probably feel incredible. "How would we even get there? I don't know all the tunnels between here and Richmond upon Thames," Pandora said reluctantly.

The Doctor pumped a fist, considering the evening's activities a forgone conclusion at this point. He ripped the Velcro closure from one of the pockets on his cargo pants and pulled out a mobile. "We join the twenty-first century and use Uber."

"You've got a phone as well," she accused. "Been doing some shopping since I saw you last."

"I got you one as well. Easier than sticky notes." He handed the phone to her and pulled out a second. "These come with universal roaming too, and I do mean universal. I made some tweaks."

* * *

The Uber driver dropped them off at The Mute Swan, and they went on foot from there.

Crossing the grounds was easy enough. There were guards, and there were dogs, but the Doctor and Pandora stayed out of the light, and away from the obvious patrols. Pandora was quite good at spotting the cameras, and the Doctor disabled them with his sonic before they were seen.

They got to the main building unnoticed and the Doctor sonicked the lock, getting them inside. "Actually, I was expecting a lot more security, to be honest. Did you notice that group of them clustered up on the North side? I wonder what that was about."

"Yeah, no. I really don't do a lot of this," Pandora whispered, looking around nervously. They were in the gift shop. She decided to scout ahead while the Doctor secured the door, but he put an arm out to stop her.

"Cameras may be your thing, but vibration sensors," he said, pointing with his sonic, "and temperature alarms are mine." He pointed again, and activated his sonic. A moment later, he twirled it around a finger and blew imaginary smoke off the tip.

Pandora rolled her eyes. "Is it safe to go now, then?"

The Doctor continued his pantomime despite the eye rolling, and put his sonic into a pretend holster. "Should be safe, li'l lady," he said in a bad Texan accent, "You just stick with me and we'll be fine." He pulled a lazy salute and did a John Wayne mosey toward the museum proper.

Pandora sighed and followed along, but stopped when she came out into the staircase. She stood in awe and spun slowly around taking it all in.

"Yes, the King's Staircase," the Doctor said in his regular voice. "It's all very impressive, but the exhibits are this way." He walked to the door and looked both ways, running his sonic over the doorway.

"So we're only here to see your stuff and ignore the rest?" Pandora asked, following him.

"No," the Doctor replied defensively. "You can... look. Just be... near me while you are looking." He pointed his sonic at a sensor in a corner of the hallway. "That's odd," he said, and smacked his sonic on his open palm a few times.

"What's odd?"

"Motion sensor in the corner. I don't remember disabling it. Ah!" His sudden exclamation startled Pandora. He pointed at a case along one wall. "That is her diary." He approached the case, Pandora following. There was a small book with a beaded cover laying open under glass next to a silver and turquoise comb and a horse-hair brush. "I would love to look through the rest of it," he said, but he tore himself away, and Pandora followed him.

They entered the main exhibit room and the Doctor held out his arm again. Pandora looked around. There were banners hanging along the walls announcing the exhibit and small glass cases all around the perimeter. There was one case against the back wall with a mannequin wearing one of Queen Elizabeth I's dresses. In the center of the room was a medium-sized case separated by a velvet rope. The main lighting was off in the room as well as throughout the palace, but the case lighting was still on, and the contents sparkled. Front and center was her crown, and lying on one side was an orb, and on the other a sceptre. In front was a necklace and to either side of that were rings.

"Now that's not right," the Doctor said, waving his sonic around. Pandora looked to him, waiting for him to explain rather than asking. "Laser grid - off. Motion sensor - off. Temperature sensor - bypassed. Only the cameras were still active when I got here."

"So it's safe then?" Pandora said, entering the room and approaching the velvet rope.

"Perfectly," he said quietly, but nervously. He too entered the room cautiously, testing each step. He walked up to the velvet rope and stepped over. He stepped right up to the glass case and inspected its contents.

"There it is," he said, pointing at one of the rings.

Pandora caught motion out of the corner of her eye and instinctively grabbed for the Doctor's arm. She pulled him backward as a figure fell from the ceiling.

The figure came to a stop a foot or so above the glass case. It was a woman in a black catsuit, with dark hair drawn back in a pony tail. Only then did Pandora see that she was suspended by thin wires attached to some mechanism on her belt.

"Finders keepers," the woman said with a smile. She touched a button on her belt that had been lit up green, and it switched to red. She grabbed the glass case with both hands and quite suddenly reversed direction, speeding upward toward an open vent in the ceiling with the case in tow.

The room resonated with her laughter as she disappeared through the vent. Suddenly alarms started going off, and doors started closing.

"She did that on purpose!" The Doctor said, pointing his sonic at the door closest to them, and it stopped half way down.

"We have to get out of here! The guards will be on their way," Pandora said.

"We have to follow her!" the Doctor said, on the run.

"Why?"

"She's one of mine!"

"One of your what?"

"Ohhhh..." he said, frustrated. "It's complicated!" He pointed his sonic at the next set of doors and there was an audible click just before he hit them at full speed, blasting them open.

They found themselves in a courtyard with a second set of open doors across the way. The Doctor got to the center of the courtyard and turned around, looking up at the rooftops. Pandora caught sight of the woman abseiling down from the roof near the opposite doors. "There!" she yelled, pointing. The two ran after her as she disconnected from the rope and ran through the open doors.

Lights started coming on all over the property, and she ran straight toward the King's Beasts statues.

"Not possible!" the Doctor said under his breath.

"What's not possible?" Pandora asked.

The Doctor redoubled his speed. "There are only ten King's Beasts!"

Pandora did her best to keep up.

Christina got to the statue on the far left of the row of eleven and opened up a panel on the side. She turned back toward them, smiled and waved goodbye.

As she closed the panel, the Doctor threw his sonic. It stuck in the doorjamb, preventing it from closing and giving the Doctor those few extra seconds he needed to get there. He grabbed his sonic and shouldered the door open.

Pandora got there just after him, but stopped short when she saw inside the statue. There was a large, white room with circular cutouts in a honeycomb pattern on the walls. In the center of the room was a raised, six-sided console covered in buttons, levers and monitors. "It's bigger on the inside!" she said.

The Doctor looked miffed. "It's not _all_ about size, there's something to be said for décor."

Lady Christina backed away toward the console.

The Doctor held up his hands in a non-threatening manner, staying in the open doorway. "Christina, what are you doing with -" An elderly white man stepped out of a doorway to the Doctor's right, drawing his attention mid-sentence. The man had neatly trimmed salt and pepper hair with a bald spot in the back. He was wearing a tailored brown suit with loop and button closures and leather loafers. "You!" said the Doctor.

The man broke into a surprised smile. "Doctor!"

"Doctor?" Christina said, shock showing in her expression as she regarded the Doctor anew.

"I see you got tired of the flying bus," the Doctor said with a cheeky smile.

"Who are these people?" Pandora asked.

"Pandora, I'd like to introduce you to the Lady Christina De Souza. Christina," he said and turned to find her charging at him.

She hit him full force, launching him out of the Tardis and knocking both him and Pandora to the ground. She smiled again. "Goodbye Doctor. Good to meet you... again," she said and slammed the stone panel on the side of the statue. With an odd, echoing, wheezing sound of gears grinding, the statue began to fade and finally disappeared.


	2. The Monk

"We've got to get out of here!" Pandora said, getting to her feet.

Torch beams darted all over as guards ran across the grounds. Lights and sirens were coming from every direction.

"No, don't," the Doctor said, getting up and dusting off. "It's too late. What we've got to do is look like we belong. He put his sonic away and pulled out his psychic paper. "Here, let me help," he said and reached out, doing up her jacket zipper.

"Look like we belong?" she said in disbelief, holding out her arms. "There's no way they're going to buy that we belong here!"

"Never underestimate overconfidence. Now, let me do the talking, and just nod every time I say something brilliant," he said, then added, "but not too often. Quick. Take out your phone and pretend you're on a call." He hastily pushed buttons on his own phone at a frenetic pace, then shoved it into the front pocket of his hoodie.

The closest group of guards came running up then. Pandora rushed to surreptitiously pull her phone from her bag at an angle they couldn't see, then turned toward them with it up to her ear. "Stay where you are!" one of the guards yelled, shining his torch in their faces.

"Yes, of course we'll stay where we are, we're where we're meant to be." The Doctor said angrily, holding up his psychic paper next to his face. "I'm the Doctor, Chief Insurance Guarantor from Lloyd's, and this is my assistant Pandora. Looks like you lot have done a bang up job and we're stuck with the bill. What do you know so far?"

One of the other guards walked up and snatched the psychic paper away from him, examining it in his torchlight. "You got here quickly," he said.

"That's because _we_ are good at our jobs. I'll ask again, what do you know so far?" the Doctor demanded, taking back his psychic paper and stuffing it in the inside pocket of his hoodie.

The guard looked flustered. "Well, not much. The alarms went off two minutes ago, and we're securing the perimeter. No one has gotten out, we're sure of that."

"I mean, what's been taken," the Doctor grabbed the man's torch and pointed it at the tag on his uniform, "MacLeod?"

"Well, like I said, we don't know much yet, sir. Something from the Queen's Collection most likely-"

"I know it's from the Queen's Collection, it's _my_ alarm that was tripped. If you don't know anything, can you take me to someone who does?"

"Yeah," he stammered, starting to sweat. "Um, yes sir. I'll take you to our security room where we're looking over the video. They'll know something by now."

"Good, now we're getting somewhere MacLeod. Pandora! Tell them we'll have an update in two minutes. I need your observation skills. Lead the way, MacLeod."

Pandora said a few words in a hushed tone, then pretended to hang up. The guard turned and headed quickly toward the Palace. The Doctor and Pandora followed.

They got to the security room to find a pair of guards arguing over fault. They fell silent as the new guard entered with the Doctor and Pandora. "Chief Insurance Guarantor from Lloyd's", MacLeod mumbled, then stepped aside.

"Before the finger pointing starts back up, let's be very clear. You are most likely both fired already. The question at this point is who is criminally liable. And rest assured I will be paying close attention to your next words. Now, the guards outside are woefully under-informed. What do _you_ know?" The Doctor glowered at them menacingly. "Impress me."

Pandora nodded sternly.

The two guards stammered and looked at each other for a bit before one of them finally said, "We know they were good. As I'm sure you know, the security system in that room was state of the art, and they knew what to bypass, and in what order. The laser grid was cut, but the signal never registered here. The temperature sensor registered a constant 72.13 Fahrenheit throughout the theft, the motion sensor never came on - we're looking into that still - and just look what we got on camera."

He motioned to the other guard, who pushed his rolling chair to a console and he pressed a button. A video feed of the main exhibit room came up and everyone crowded around. Nothing happened at first, but then a blob of static entered the room. The static moved slowly across the room to the central case, blotting it out entirely. A few moments later there was indistinct movement at the very top of the screen, black on black. Then there was a light at the top of the screen, and the static moved back off-screen. When it was gone, the case was missing as well.

The Doctor watched all of this gravely. "So you have nothing," he said dangerously. "I-" he started, but then his phone rang. He dug it out of his hoodie pocket and turned away from the display. "Doctor here," he said. "Heading north?" he confirmed, then looked at his watch. "Inform the police. We're on our way." He hung up the phone.

"It looks like a traffic cam just did your job for you gentlemen. I want that video enhanced. Forget about the staticy bit on the bottom, there's something hiding in the shadows at the top. Pandora, let's go."

They were unchallenged on the way out, and the Doctor hailed a cab off the Pond Gardens.

"That was brilliant, Doctor. I was sure we were nicked," Pandora said laughing as they tumbled into the back of the cab.

"Paddington Station," the Doctor said to the cabbie. "Well, it helps that we didn't take anything," he then said to Pandora rather more quietly.

"You set your phone to ring on a timer, right?"

"Yes," he said, and started biting his nails, deep in thought.

"So, who were those people?" Pandora asked.

"Well, the one was the Lady Christina De Souza, as I said. She's a thief, as well as minor royalty. She made it onto Interpol's most wanted list, and she's saved the world. The dangerous one though, he is a Time Lord, like me. He calls himself the Monk." He was silent for a while, but his face told Pandora exactly what the Doctor thought of the Monk. Finally, he added, "He's a meddler."

"What do you mean, meddler?"

"Well, I've told you what I used to do. I travelled through time and space seeking out the best of it and experiencing its wonders. Along the way, I would correct anything that was going atrociously wrong; save lives, topple the odd oppressive regime and the like. The Monk thinks that he and I are alike. He also travels through time and changes the course of events, but whereas I would do so for the benefit of the people living there, he alters the outcomes to benefit himself. He manufactures conflicts and disasters and uses the confusion to collect treasures that will just be assumed destroyed.

"He does it for vanity," the Doctor spat, "and for personal wealth." The Doctor was quiet for a while, as he sat biting his thumbnail and staring into space, then he burst out, "Most of the artwork still missing after Nazi occupation are in his collection. He once orchestrated a Norman invasion to try to throw the Battle of Hastings."

"So you two go way back then?" Pandora asked.

The Doctor ignored her. He spoke as if he didn't even know she was there. "I hold him personally responsible for the deaths of Lucy Miller, Tamsin Drew and my great-grandson, Alex. And how did he survive the Time War...?"

Pandora wanted to ask about the great-grandson thing, but decided now wasn't the time. "Okay Doctor, what are we going to do?" Pandora said.

The Doctor finally snapped out of it. "If the Monk is stealing something so brazenly, he must expect there to be a war or disaster to cover it up for history. I know this time period, and there was no such war or disaster in the UK. That means he must be planning to create one. Right now that's our main concern. What has he orchestrated, and how do we stop it? Once we know that... Well, the next bit is personal."

"Whatever it is, Doctor, I'm with you," Pandora said, laying a hand on his.

The Doctor smiled faintly, but pulled his hand back. "Next I need to give Christina a chance. I owe her that. But we'll worry about that in the morning. I can't imagine the Monk has completed his collection for now, and other targets will be too hot to hit tonight. Let's get some rest and meet at the library in the morning. We need to do some research."

* * *

The next morning, Pandora lit out early, leaving a note to thank the seamstress for the pasta, and making sure the window to the fire escape was shut tightly. She sat on a bench on Porchester to kill some time peoplewatching.

She'd nearly forgotten she had a phone until it rang in her shoulder bag, startling her. She dug it out and saw the caller ID read 'Spaceman' and had a selfie of the Doctor. He was calling from the library next block over, and it was just opening. She packed her things up, picked up her box and met the Doctor at the door.

The Doctor found a spot at a computer, and Pandora found an outlet for her tablet across the table from him.

"Okay," Pandora said as soon as she'd connected her tablet to the library's wifi, "what exactly are we looking for?"

"Recent news. Headlines. Anything out of the ordinary. Terrorist activity, bus bombings-" the Doctor looked around, then lowered his voice and continued. "Bus bombings, border incursions, recent earthquakes. It's hard to be specific, but the Monk could be behind any of it. Just let me know if something doesn't feel right."

Pandora pulled up a news site and started browsing headlines. "Tom Hiddleston is dating that singer from the States. Does that count?"

The Doctor's face slowly appeared around the side of the monitor wearing a disapproving expression.

"Kidding! Kidding," Pandora said. The Doctor went back to his research and Pandora lapsed into silence, scrolling through Politics and International.

Half an hour passed this way, when the Doctor broke the quiet. "Spending so much time with Obelix, I've been thinking about getting my own dog, but I can't decide on a name. What do you think about Sally?"

Pandora looked up from the story she was reading. It didn't seem likely the Monk was behind the Zika outbreak. "Um, what? Sorry, dog names? Sally?"

"No?" He looked back at his screen and clicked his mouse. "How about Maggie?"

"We're talking about a dog, right?"

Click. "No then? How about... Sadie?"

Pandora sat up a little straighter and her eyes flashed as she set her tablet down on the table. She had a look on her face that was equal parts suspicion and worry. "What are you doing over there?" she asked quietly.

She stood up and quickly moved around the table. The Doctor rapidly clicked the mouse several times. When Pandora got into a position to see his monitor, he was on a science news site, looking at recent trends in global weather.

"What do you mean, what am I doing?" the Doctor asked innocently. "What were you doing?"

Pandora watched his expression with obvious disbelief. "How about I sit on this side with you?" She reached across the table and slid her tablet over to her. She started scrolling through headlines again, but with one eye on the Doctor's screen.

"Be my guest," the Doctor said. He clicked on another article link. "How about Debra?"

Pandora set down her tablet again, exasperated. "How about Moxy? Or Shadow, or Winnipeg? How about something that sounds remotely like a dog name, not a person's?"

"Hmm. I'll think about it." The Doctor tried another site. Most of the stories were of a similar nature, but one caught his eye. "Wait a minute, that's not right." He clicked on the story and Pandora read over his shoulder. The gist of the article was that the most recent tracking data suggested a 14% chance of an asteroid called Apophis colliding with Earth in 2016. "Apophis won't even approach the Earth until 2029, and even then it won't hit."

He performed an internet search, and found several other articles saying the same thing, posted within the last couple weeks and quoting the 14% figure. "I've got to see this for myself," the Doctor said under his breath.

He hit some key combination to open a command prompt, which caused a dialog to pop up asking for the Administrator password. He started typing at lightning speed. The dialog disappeared and a terminal window came up. Before Pandora knew it a VPN window appeared for NASA's internal network.

"Whoa, Doctor, I don't think you should be doing that..." Pandora stood up and started looking around nervously.

"It's okay," he said absently, fingers flying across the keyboard. Odd symbols that weren't on the keyboard and mathematical formulae filled the screen. Dialogs appeared and disappeared.

She caught one as it briefly appeared, it said, "Aligning satellites..."

Finally the Doctor stopped typing and a graphic appeared on screen, showing arcs in various colors, then it overlaid another arc, section by section with a circle labeled '99942A' moving to appear at the end of each new section. In the upper right corner was a box containing a date and a percentage. It started with today's date and one hundred percent. As the date went up, the percentage went down. Three days later, the simulation ended with the circle intersecting with another arc in blue. The percentage read 68.

"What does that mean?" Pandora asked.

The Doctor pointed, speaking in low tones. "The blue line represents Earth's orbit. That circle there is us. 99942A is the near-Earth asteroid Apophis. 68% chance they collide in three days."

"But the article said fourteen percent!" Pandora whispered urgently.

"My calculations are more accurate. To get any more accurate than this we'd need to launch better satellites."

Pandora looked around the library again and leaned in closer, speaking in a low voice. "Okay, who do we tell about this? I mean, obviously not the general public because that would cause a panic, but there's got to be a Bruce Willis out there with drills and nukes, right?"

The Doctor looked up at Pandora, disbelieving. "You know that's fiction, right? And if they did nuke the asteroid, we'd just be hit by lots of little ones, which would hurt at least as badly."

"Then what _are_ we going to do?"

"The asteroid can wait. We need to stop the Monk. He must have nudged that asteroid toward the Earth to cover up his thefts."

"His and Christina's," Pandora corrected him.

The Doctor lost his train of thought and started biting at his thumbnail again. "Yes - and Christina's." His eyes darted back and forth, though he didn't seem to be focusing on anything in particular.

"Change of search terms," he said finally, snapping out of it. "Let's see what's worth stealing if we've only got three days left to live."

* * *

The Museum of London is, unlike Hampton Court Palace, in an urban center, and easier to approach on foot. It is also much more modern, with modern locks on modern doors and modern surveillance systems built into the very design. This also meant that it relied more heavily on the automated security and so had fewer guards for the Doctor and Pandora to dodge on their way in long after closing that night.

The item the Doctor thought the Monk would be after was in the section 410 - 1558, which was a very wide date range in Pandora's mind, but the exhibit seemed no larger than any of the others. The Doctor had turned off any security instruments just long enough for them to pass by, then re-enabled them. There was no need to warn Lady Christina that they were here already. Pandora and the Doctor crouched in the darkness of the museum for hours, reminding Pandora of how they had crouched in the darkness of a young boy's room a month or so back, waiting for a monster to come out of his closet. The room they were in contained items from the Battle of Hastings, and the time period just before hand. There were display boxes containing ancient coins, scraps of cloth, metal stemware and cutlery, and illustrated historical accounts. Taking up the entire far wall was an annotated photograph of the Bayeux Tapestry, and in front of it, one large case, lit internally.

Pandora had to shift a bit, one of her legs had gone asleep from sitting on her box in the same position for so long. "Are you sure this is the one? Plenty of other exhibits had more valuable items," she whispered.

"Yes, I'm sure," the Doctor responded. He indicated the large case behind them boasting a single battered and rusted item. "This is the sword of Harold Godwinson, Harold the Second. Shot through the eye by an unknown archer in the Battle of Hastings, 14 October, 1066. I think the Monk's been after it for a thousand years. There's no way he's leaving it for an asteroid to vaporize in three days."

Suddenly the Doctor tensed at a nearby sound. He moved to stand directly next to her. "Stay perfectly still, and absolutely quiet," he whispered out of the side of his mouth. He fumbled around in the pocket of his hoodie and pulled out a small button that looked like a garage door opener. He pressed the button with a barely audible click, and a small red led began to glow.

A guard walked into the room, and shone the beam of his torch around. First at the sword that was its centerpiece, then around at the other exhibits at the edges of the room. He pointed his torch into the dark corners of the room, twice passing the beam directly over the Doctor where he stood, but apparently not seeing either him or Pandora still sitting on her box. He pressed a button on the side of a radio transceiver clipped at his shoulder and spoke into it. "Godwinson Room clear, heading into the Confession Chamber. Over."

"We're not calling it that. Over," said a voice on the other end.

The guard smiled, pleased with himself, and continued along into the next room. "Maybe not, but you should. Come on, Edward the Confessor?" His voice trailed off, and they could see the illumination of his torch bob and weave off into the distance.

"Let me guess," Pandora whispered. "Perception filter?"

"Not exactly. More of a psychic barrier," he said clicking it back off. "I didn't know what our surroundings would look like to put up a convincing hologram, so I built this little gadget instead. All it does is subtly suggest whatever inside the field is not even important enough to pay attention to, much less remember. Wouldn't work on cameras or the like though. Also eats through batteries like crazy. Those twenty-eight seconds are about all we're going to get out of it. Let's hope he doesn't come back this way."

Suddenly, they heard the wheezing, grinding noise from the night before. "They're not even trying the subtle approach," the Doctor commented. Pandora pointed to a section along the wall where a mannequin displaying period appropriate chainmail armor, helmet and cloak was slowing appearing out of nowhere.

"That's got to be the thing from last night, the, um, Tardis, but it looks so different," Pandora said, standing.

"Sorry, yes. Look, I don't intend to keep these things from you, but I just never seem to find the time to explain, and when I do have ample time, nobody believes me. This is one of the times when I don't have time. The short version is that Tardises can look different on the outside."

The chainmail on the side of the dummy hinged outward and Lady Christina stepped out. She was dressed much the same as the night before, but she was holding a device with a large screen, handles on either side and a long antenna. She swept the room with it and stopped when it was pointed at the Doctor and Pandora. "You were right," she said, looking back into the Tardis. "But no perception filter or anything. They're just standing right there."

She tossed the device back inside, and the Monk stepped out carrying it casually in one hand. "Well Doctor," he said with a smug smile, "I wish I could say this was a surprise."

"Hello Monk. I can see this regeneration is no leaner than your previous ones," the Doctor said.

The Monk patted his portly belly in a self-effacing manner. "It's no secret I enjoy the finer things. And the regenerations haven't improved _your_ fashion sense. You were dressed as a cowboy, the last time we met as I recall?"

The Doctor flipped up his hood and straightened the hem of his hoodie. "Yes, well, thank you for that. Most people think I was playing at Byron or something. But enough of the banter. You are here for the sword and I can't let you take it."

Christina interrupted them. "Correction, _we_ are here for the sword, and _you_ can't stop us." She walked up to the case and stepped slowly around it, examining it in detail while ignoring the sword completely.

"Christina, stay away from the Monk. You don't know him like I do."

"Is that a fact?" she asked without looking away from the case. "I'm not really sure I know you either. Last time _I_ saw you, you were fond of suits and overcoats and Chucks. _And_ you were hot. What happened to you?" Finally she looked at him, but with a playful smile.

"I died. Rather a lot. But you have to trust that I'm still me inside, and you don't want to help this man. He will hurt you, and he doesn't care how many people die so that he can collect these baubles and trinkets."

He turned to the Monk. "How many people are going to die just so that you can hang a moldy old sword over your mantle?"

Christina spoke up again, her smile gone. "So you know about the asteroid. Then you know we can't save everyone, but we can prevent works of art and important pieces of history being destroyed."

The Doctor turned back to Christina. "But they shouldn't die. I've been to the future. Apophis never hits the Earth, not in three days, not in five hundred."

"But you're wrong Doctor. I didn't believe it either, even when the Monk showed me the history books from the 22nd century. I had to see it for myself. The Monk showed me. His Tardis hung in orbit around the Earth, three days from now, and I watched the asteroid slam into the Earth just South of Bedford." She walked over to the Doctor, standing very close and examining his face as she continued. "Everything north of Reading was a crater. The entire population of the U.K. and Ireland, wiped out in an instant. Millions more across France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Plumes of ash and dust were covering the rest of Europe, tsunamis were heading toward North America, and the death toll was only going to go up. I couldn't watch any more."

She stood and stared at the Doctor. Daring him to contradict her, even accusing him for his lack of sympathy. "That's what I thought. Now, excuse us while we preserve a few items of cultural significance for future generations." She turned to walk back to the case, but the Doctor caught her by the wrist.

"But the asteroid never should have hit the Earth," he said in empathetic tones. "The only way it could have is if it got diverted. Just a little nudge, just a slight gravity assist would have been enough at just the right moment. And that's just what the Monk does. He doesn't want to get in trouble with our people, so things can't simply disappear out of time. There has to be some sort of disaster, or a war, where things do tend to get lost or destroyed. So, he creates these conditions, and the Time Lords don't notice."

"But the history book-"

"So he diverted the asteroid, quickly visited the future, got just the proof you would believe and brought it back to the here and now. Probably with a list all prepared for items he wanted 'saved.' Am I right?"

"No," Christina said defiantly. "We worked on it together. Perhaps you've forgotten, Doctor, but I don't do the side-kick role. That's for him. It's my decision what we go after-"

"And was Godwinson's sword on your to-do list?"

"No, but I-"

"And at what future date did you two intend to return these 'items of cultural significance?'"

Christina raised her voice, "We hadn't gotten that far yet."

The Monk cleared his throat. "I am so sorry to interrupt, but all this is taking way too long." He walked over to stand next to the case containing the sword and indicated the device he was holding. "I was expecting you, and I knew you'd try to stop me, so I took precautions." He pressed a button on one of the handles. "I included a recall function on this device so that my Tardis would home in on its location." The suit of armor faded away with a wheezing grind, and the Monk waved goodbye with a self-satisfied smile.

"Monk! No, wait," Christina called out, but a large packing crate slowly appeared in the middle of the room directly around the Monk and the case containing Harold Godwinson's sword.

The Monk's laughter faded away as the crate appeared around him. Christina ran to it and pounded on the side. "Don't you dare leave without me! Let me in!"

The cyclic wheezing sound started again, and the crate slowly disappeared. The Monk and the case with the sword were gone.


	3. Apophis

"Ah, Christina!" the Monk said into his Tardis's console phone. "To what do I owe this pleasure?"

"Can it, Monk. You left me behind," she responded angrily. "And when you stole the whole case like that, it set off every alarm in the place. Luckily I managed to elude the Doctor and his companion while I made my escape. Now come get me."

"Yes, about that. I'm just not sure things are working out between us, dear lady. The truth is, I think your history with the Doctor may be clouding your judgement on this. I know how persuasive he can be, and I really think I can finish this job just fine in your absence."

"Oh, Is that what you think? Well, here's what I think. I think if you go pulling off any more stunts like last night, your activities are sure to get noticed by the Time Lords. I also think you don't know me so well if you think I get personally involved with anyone. Plus, I know what happens to this planet tomorrow, and I don't intend to be here to see it. And one other thing that I'm sure will get your attention, I've still got Saint George's signet ring."

Lady Christina waited to hear what the Monk had to say about all that, but before he said another word, she heard the wheezing, grinding noise of the Tardis landing behind her. She smiled wickedly and hung up the phone. "That's what I thought," she said to herself. She shouldered her bag and turned to see a street-side rubbish bin that hadn't been there a moment ago.

A pair of doors opened on the front of the rubbish bin, and Lady Christina ducked through the entry to the Tardis, the doors closing automatically behind her. The Monk stood at the console, holding the phone in one hand and the door lever in the other. He smiled and shook his head when he saw her. "How could I have ever doubted you? I do apologize," he said, hanging up the phone.

"Yes, well I'll start with a hot shower and a decent meal, then we can discuss it," Christina said, hanging a loop of her back pack on the coat rack.

"Yes, of course. How did you spend the night?" the Monk inquired.

"Dreadfully. In a hostel in Whitechapel with five hitchhiking Norwegians."

"So sorry to hear it. Well, you get situated and we'll set the Tardis to tonight for one last set of collections before the big one hits. But now that you mention it, I am feeling a mite esurient myself and could do with a bit of a repast. Why don't I set up a banquet in the dining room, and you come join me when you feel refreshed."

Christina gave him a brief forced smile and made to leave the console room. "Oh, and the signet ring..." the Monk called out idly, flipping a few switches on the console, "is it there?" He indicated her back pack.

She unzipped her jacket and pulled her necklace out of her shirt. From it, hung a simple gold cross, a key and three rings. One looked like a class ring, another had a large ruby at its apex and diamonds all around, but the last was gold and of a man's width with the pattern of a crest inlaid. "On me, where it stays," she said.

The Monk smiled graciously.

* * *

"Don't trust me," the Doctor had said. "See for yourself. Underneath his console there are several panels. Go anti-clockwise, from the lever that opens the door, two places. Remove the panel. Now, you won't understand anything there, but that's okay. There will be one piece that clearly doesn't belong, like the Cup of Athelstan didn't belong on a steering wheel.

"If it's there, you've got your proof. The only reason he'd have a mass accumulator is to pull a large body out of its orbit. I need you to bring that back to me if I'm going to save the UK."

He turned to address Pandora and Christina both. "I'm also going to need my Tardis, so I want you to meet me in Hyde Park. There's an old blue police box. I'll be there at noon tomorrow. If you are there, there's a chance we can stop this asteroid."

* * *

Christina ran the water and waited a few minutes, then sneaked out of the shower. She moved silently through the corridors of the Monk's Tardis toward the dining room. As she approached, she heard the Monk humming to himself. She hugged one side of the open doorway and took a quick glance inside. The Monk was laying out silverware from his Louis XIV collection. He must be feeling truly conciliatory, she thought. She slipped noiselessly to the other side of the doorway, then continued on to the console room.

She moved around to the far side of the console and touched the door control mechanism as a way of orienting herself. She stepped to the left, then left again and knelt down. There were handles near the top of both left and right sides of the panel, and she reached out with both hands to grab them. "I can't believe I'm doing this," she said to herself. "Okay, I'm just going to pull this off, look inside, replace it and take my shower. No big deal."

She tugged on the handles and the panel pulled off easily. Behind it was a lattice of crystals with clear wires connecting them. Red and yellow indicators blinked seemingly at random. However hanging off the front of it was a metal, baseball sized cube with protrusions in all cardinal directions, connected to the lattice via alligator clips. It had a dial on one side currently pointing at one, but going up to ten thousand. "Damn," she said under her breath.

She set the panel cover down and stood up, looking back toward the dining room. If she confronted him with it, he'd just lie again. She knelt back down. She had no idea what order to remove the clips in, so she finally just grasped the thing by the cube and yanked it quickly out. She paused for a moment to see if anything obviously changed, but the Tardis continued to silently vibrate.

She stood up, leaving the panel on the floor, and grabbed her back pack. She moved back to the console and reached for the door control, then stopped. She turned around toward the room they'd been storing the treasures in. She quickly made up her mind, unzipped her pack and shoved the device in, then set it down and removed her jacket. She opened the door to the treasure room and quickly found King Harold's sword. She wrapped it up in her jacket, then picked up as much treasure as she could carry and went back into the console room. She threw what she could into her pack and put it over her shoulder. She paused and listened with one hand on the door control.

"Oh Christina," she heard the Monk saying, then a knocking. "Are you still in there?" Christina threw the lever. The doors opened and she quickly left the Tardis, closing them back up from the outside.

* * *

"So this is your Tardis, hey?" Pandora asked, running one hand along the blue box as she examined it.

The Doctor was waving his sonic around in the field behind the police box. "Yes, ma'am, that's her," he said over his shoulder.

"Is it like the Monk's? All huge inside?"

The Doctor smacked his sonic, muttering something under his breath before turning around. "Bigger than you can imagine. I always love that part, when I throw open her doors and somebody sees her for the first time... But I suppose you won't be so impressed, having seen the Monk's already."

"And it changes what it looks like?"

The Doctor looked embarrassed. "Well, it would. A Tardis performs a 12 dimensional scan of the location and all its inhabitants in the moment before it materializes, then it determines the perfect appearance that would be completely innocuous, but at the same time stand out enough that you can find it again. My Tardis does that bit just fine."

"But...?"

"But then it always picks a 1960's era police box." He turned around and started waving his sonic around some more, then said, "Come help me find the key. I, um, dropped it over here somewhere."

"What's it look like?" Pandora left the Tardis to come join the Doctor.

"Well, it's round on the part you hold - I don't know, would you call that a handle? And it's got the bumpy bits on one side. It looks brass, and it says 'Yale' on it. It should be giving off some artron energy, which is what I'm scanning for." He shook the sonic again and pressed the button several times until it finally made the right sound and he started waving it over the grass some more.

"What's the matter? Is that broken too?"

"Well it's not like I can get the parts down the street. There's no eleculum on Earth, so I had to solder the components using flux, which liquefies at certain frequencies and at relatively low temperatures. I'm afraid it's a bit dodgy."

Pandora nodded and started moving clumps of grass aside with the toe of one foot. "What if someone picked it up?" she asked, brushing her hair aside and scanning the grass.

"I've been trying not to think of that," the Doctor muttered.

"Well, you were right, Doctor," called a voice from behind them. They both turned to see Lady Christina approaching. She was carrying the sword in one hand, wrapped in her leather jacket, with her other hand on her back pack, which she swung off her shoulder and threw to the Doctor. "Careful with that, there are some Fabergé eggs in there."

The Doctor lunged to catch it, a look of fright and then relief on his face as he managed to grab it before it hit the ground. He gave Christina a stern look, but said nothing.

"Is this it?" Pandora asked. She was pointing to a spot in the grass, but she was looking at Christina with disapproval.

The Doctor activated his sonic and pointed it at the spot Pandora indicated. "Yes! Oh, thank Cleese!"

"I thought you'd stopped doing that."

"Alright, fine. I suppose it wasn't working. Bring it over here, and I'll show you how a _real_ Tardis looks inside."

Pandora bent and retrieved the key. "Come on, both of you!" the Doctor said, running excitedly to the front doors of his Tardis.

Pandora got to the box first and handed him his key. The Doctor looked at it somewhat reverently in his palm for a few moments, then grasped it tightly and smiled broadly. He inserted it into the lock and waited for Christina to join them.

When she did, his smile broadened even more. He twisted the key quickly and pushed hard on both doors.

The key didn't turn, and the doors didn't open. The Doctor looked confused and pulled the key out just slightly and jiggled it. It still didn't turn. He shouldered the back pack, removed the key and pointed his sonic at it. "This is definitely the right key..." he said, then it dawned on him. "She's not letting me in..."

"What do you mean?" Lady Christina asked. "She's a machine. You insert the right key, and the lock works. That's how its done."

"Yes, but she's also alive," he said, then louder and pointedly, "and over-afflicted with personality!"

He stowed his sonic inside his hoodie and took a second to calm himself. He placed the open palms of both hands lightly against the doors, and spoke quietly. "This isn't the time to be stubborn. I can't say I'm sorry I threw the key, and you wouldn't believe me if I did."

"You threw the key?" Pandora accused.

The Doctor turned his head toward her. "Now don't you start in on me too." He pulled up his hood and turned back to the Tardis, laying his palms against it again. "Tomorrow, England is going to be turned to magma, including the spot you are standing on. Millions will die, but you and I can stop it. Even if it won't be like old times, that's got to be worth something, doesn't it?"

He stood back and looked at the Tardis for a moment. It sat silently. He held the key up in front of his face meaningfully. He stepped forward and inserted the key slowly. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then turned the key.

It still wouldn't budge. "Oh, come on now!" he yelled, kicking the door.

"Talk about stubborn, Doctor," Christina said. "Why won't you apologize?"

"Because I was making a point! I'm the one who decides where I want to go, and she keeps dropping me where I'm needed instead! Well, I'm _needed_ up there, right now!" he yelled at the Tardis, pointing skyward.

"Well, maybe you need to stop being stubborn then," Pandora said. The Doctor turned toward her, taken aback. "If an apology saves the world, isn't that more important than your ego?"

He pulled his hood back down, but his face hardened. "Why don't you tell her that?" Then he brightened. "In fact, that's a good idea. If recent events are any indication, I think she likes you better. Here." He placed the key in the palm of her hand and stepped back.

"But I've never even seen her before."

"That doesn't matter, she's seen you in the future. Remember the translation matrix."

Pandora looked down at the key and took a few moments to think of what she wanted to say. Finally she stepped up to the doors and, looking at the Doctor for confirmation, she placed her palms against it.

"You don't actually have to do that, she can hear you," he said, somewhat abashed.

She pulled a face and dropped her hands. She shifted her balance from one foot to another and shook her arms, looking up at the windows on top of the Tardis. "Hi, Tardis," she started tentatively. "Um, my name is Pandora." She thought better about saying anything that might not be true and corrected herself. "Well, it's not, but that's what I call myself. Anyway, we've got this gravity doohickey-"

"A mass accumulator," the Doctor corrected.

"-this mass accumulator. We can use it to tug the asteroid out of its current path, a path it shouldn't be in, but if we try that from here, it will just hit the Earth harder. You can see our predicament. We need to be in space and pull it away. We need you to get us there. If you don't open for us, people are going to die." She looked over at the Doctor and he nodded encouragingly. She was building up confidence and continued more firmly. "People who wouldn't have died except another Time Lord and another Tardis made it happen. So, please, let's fix this."

The Doctor smiled. Pandora slid the key into the lock and tried turning it. She jiggled it back and forth to no avail, then sighed and pulled the key back out. "No luck, Doctor," she said and handed the key back to him.

"No matter," the Doctor said. He put the key back in a pocket of his pants and smiled. "You tried, and you did fine as far as I'm concerned. And you reminded me: My Tardis isn't the only way off this planet. Christina, where is the Monk parked?"

* * *

"Do you have any real reason to believe your key will work any better on this one?" Pandora asked as the Doctor knelt in front of the rubbish bin that was the Monk's Tardis.

"I traded out my Tardis key ages ago back on Gallifrey for a Castellan's universal key. It's meant to override the lock and gain entry to any Tardis. So long as it isn't actively fighting me, I should be able to get in." The Doctor turned the key in the lock and pushed the doors open easily. He turned and gestured like a magician completing a magic trick. "I'll go first in case the Monk is in the console room."

He ducked inside and the ladies followed. Once they were in, the Doctor threw the lever to close the doors.

"No sign of the Monk?" Pandora asked nervously, looking around. There was a hallway and a door exiting the console room, plus the double doors they'd entered through.

"No sign of him," the Doctor confirmed, dancing around the console, pressing buttons and flipping switches. "But that doesn't mean he's not around. There'll be thousands of rooms off that way, and a rather large cupboard through there," he said, nodding toward the door.

"That's his treasure room," Christina said.

"Of course," the Doctor said, squatting beneath the console and grabbing one of the panels. "His Treasure Room," he said with disdain. He pulled off the panel and set it aside, then unzipped Christina's back pack and pulled out the mass accumulator.

"Is it okay if I take a look around?" Pandora asked.

"Best not to," the Doctor said, hooking the accumulator up to the crystal lattice of the console. "It'll be a maze back there. You could get lost, even if you don't run into the Monk. And that's all we need at this point, give him a hostage."

"What have you got in that box?" Christina asked.

Pandora put a protective arm over it. "It's mine," she said simply.

Christina rolled her eyes. "I hate the word 'mine'. It's so transitory. Of course it's yours, but nothing is yours forever, and besides that's not what I was asking. What's inside it?"

The Doctor poked his head out, curious as to where this would go.

"It doesn't matter. It's private and I don't want to discuss it." Pandora said defensively.

Christina laughed unkindly. "Well there are far more convenient ways to carry your private things around. Must be some reason to put it in a big old heavy box. Can I see it?"

"No!" Pandora said reflexively, taking a step back. Then more calmly, she said, "It's all I've got, and I don't like people touching it. Can we change the subject?"

Christina still looked intrigued, but she said, "Fine, whatever."

The Doctor stood up. "That's me finished. Remember the whole 'saving the Earth thing'? We're still on the clock. There's only a certain window during which we can do it or the Earth's gravity well will pull it in no matter what we do."

"Isn't that a bit dramatic? We're in a time machine. You can just go back to when it wasn't too late."

"Oh shut up," the Doctor grumbled. "That's not how it works. Alright! Let's find that asteroid." He flipped a switch and a panel on the wall slid up revealing a large monitor. The sidewalk outside showed up along with pedestrians passing by. The Doctor moved around to another section of the console and flipped several switches and pulled an entire bank of toggles down. The scene switched to show what looked like an enormous baked potato spinning slowly in the darkness of space. "There we go."

He moved around the entire console, turning a dial here, checking a reading there, pushing a series of buttons, and flipping a couple switches before standing by one lever, larger than all the others. He smiled broadly, then flipped it dramatically.

A glass chamber in the center of the console moved up and down, and crystalline machinery could be seen moving inside it, but there was no noise and no sense of movement. The Doctor looked confused. "Hang on," he said. He moved around to another station and turned a little dial several clicks clockwise. "That's not right..."

He reset the main lever, then grabbed the top edge of that wedge-like section of controls and pulled upward hard. The whole wedge hinged outward and came to rest. "Oh, no," the Doctor said, leaning in.

"This is not a directional gyro," he said matter-of-factly as he pulled out a red velvet jewelry gift box. He opened it at arm's length, but instead of a ring or an explosive device like he was expecting, it contained a folded piece of paper.

He removed the paper and threw the box over his shoulder. He unfolded the paper, then with a look of disgust, he handed it to Lady Christina. "We're done here," he said.

Christina read the handwritten note. "Dearest Christina, I regret to inform that your services are no longer required. It grieves me so because we could have been so good together. I had actually considered helping you move from 34th to the crown much higher in the list, but sadly, your actions have left me with no other choice. In case you also had decided to dissolve our partnership, I now carry the directional gyro on my person. There'll be no more exploration for you without me. Kindly hang your key on the coat rack on your way out."

"What do you mean, 'done here'?" Pandora asked.

"Just that," the Doctor said from underneath the console. He emerged with the mass accumulator. "This Tardis isn't going anywhere without the directional gyro. I could fix it with parts from my own Tardis, but she's not letting me in. We've done everything we can and it's time to go. Who's up for a last minute flight to Dubai, Calcutta or Perth?"

"What do you mean, 'done everything we can'? We can't just leave, knowing what's going to happen."

The Doctor picked up Christina's back pack and shoved it in her arms angrily. "Why does it have to be me? Why is it always me? Somebody else can do something about this one, I tried. I'm tired, and I'm done." He shoved the mass accumulator into one of his pants pockets, wires dangling out of the opening. "Come on, I'm buying."

"I'm not going anywhere until we talk about this!" Pandora said. She set down her box to emphasize the point.

"I am," Christina said. Both the Doctor and Pandora looked over at the interruption. "I actually bought a ticket to Wellington, New Zealand before coming to meet you earlier. I felt bad doing it, because it felt like a betrayal. It was like I didn't have faith in you. But now I'm glad I did. See you around, Doctor. Nice to meet you, Pandora." She walked to the console and flipped the lever to open the doors.

The Doctor looked ashamed, and he never made eye contact, but he said nothing to keep her there. Christina shook her head and left without another word.

Pandora stomped over to the console and closed the doors. "Okay then, who?"

"Who, what?" the Doctor said dejectedly.

"Who do we tell about this? Who can fix this now that you've given up?"

"I don't know. UNIT, maybe?"

"Can UNIT get into space in time to stop this?"

"No," the Doctor admitted.

"If I gave them the gravity doohickey, would they be able to do anything with it?"

"Probably not..."

"Then...?" she asked, unrelenting.

"I don't know! Torchwood?" he yelled.

"There is no Torchwood anymore!" Pandora yelled back. "It's you! It has to be you, and do you know why? Because you can. And if you can, then you have to!"

The Doctor angrily pulled out the mass accumulator and held it out to Pandora. "How about you then? Huh? This is the only device that can save London now. Here you go! But be quick! In another couple hours, the asteroid will be too close to Earth and there won't be any way to reverse it!"

He stood there seething at Pandora, and Pandora seething right back at him.

Suddenly an odd look came over the Doctor's face. "Reverse it..." he said quietly, considering it. Slowly he lowered the device.

"What is it, Doctor?" Pandora asked, also calming.

He held it up in front of them both, regarding it thoughtfully. "What if I reversed it?"

"I can see the wheels turning, Doctor, but I can't see where you're going."

His head snapped up to look at her and he spoke excitedly. "The mass accumulator works by increasing the density of an object, causing its gravity to increase. The Monk increased his Tardis's density until it was sufficient to attract the asteroid and alter its path, bending it toward Earth, but what if I can reverse it?"

" _Can_ you reverse it?" Pandora asked cautiously.

He started pacing. "Oh, my timing would have to be phenomenal! It would have to be moving fast enough to break orbit again... And there would be a veritable outbreak of heart attacks! But we could project a psychic barrier." He stopped pacing and faced her. "Pandora, how long do you think people could convince themselves that an asteroid screaming right for them was unimportant?"

"What are you talking about?" Pandora asked, desperately trying to catch up.

The Doctor shoved the device impatiently into his pocket and started digging through the many others until he came up with the garage door clicker. "The Psychic Barrier - only we'd need one a lot bigger - The field tells you whatever is inside isn't important, so you don't pay attention to it. If that thing is a cup of tea, you won't notice it even after you dash it to the floor, but if the thing is a knife wielding maniac, eventually you take notice - field or no field. Asteroids are big and scary." He started pacing again, and chewing on his thumbnail as well. "But then again, who ever looks up anymore...?"

"You mean you intend to let the asteroid hit the Earth, but make it so people won't notice?" she asked uncertainly.

He stopped pacing again and grabbed her by both arms. "Quickly Pandora, there is no time to lose!"

Pandora stood there, trying to let that image sink in, but the Doctor was frantic with activity. He shoved the clicker into his pocket, flipped the lever to open the doors and ran back for Pandora's box. He shoved it into her arms and ushered her toward the door. "On our way now," he said, but then thought of one more thing. He returned to the console and plucked another component from the open wedge of the console, stashed it in his hoodie pocket and closed the wedge back up. Pandora looked at him quizzically, and he said, "Well, in case this fails, I want the Monk to be around to see it. He won't be going anywhere without his dematerialization circuit."

* * *

Back in the Doctor's underground workshop, he was tearing through cardboard boxes of spare parts. He discarded an old printer head assembly, a carburetor and part of a saxophone, then set a projector lens assembly on his workbench. He set aside the one box and started digging into the next. He threw a lot of parts into the previous box, but pulled out a small generator and several Erlenmeyer flasks full of who knows what and finally an old speaker which he tore apart by hand, keeping only the magnet and the coil.

Pandora watched the flurry of activity, but had no idea where he was going with it, so she mainly stood back. "How can I help?"

The Doctor returned his attention to the lens assembly. He held it in one hand and buzzed the sonic at one end while examining the other. "Remember the telescope we left on the roof? I'm going to need it. Bring the whole thing. I'm going to need the mirror, lenses, motor assembly and tripod." He continued working through his explanation, never looking up at her while he overturned a cardboard box then started throwing in the items he'd collected as well as a set of jumper cables, some calipers and a collection of circuitry he'd put together on his workbench.

Pandora set her box down in a corner and headed to the lift to street level.

When she returned with the telescope, the Doctor's box of odds and ends was up in the alley, but the Doctor wasn't to be seen, so Pandora called the lift and went down to the access tunnels. The Doctor was smashing through the cinderblock wall with a sledge hammer. When he saw her, he stopped long enough to explain.

"Go ahead and set that down. We'll need it upstairs in a bit, but more importantly, I need higher voltage than comes out the wall socket. These cables behind here will do the trick." He set down the sledge and pulled his sonic from his inside hoodie pocket, tossing it to Pandora. "Twist the base two clicks, then the top one click anti-clockwise. Start collecting the cables supplying the lights down here. We need to get the power up to our machinery upstairs." With that he picked the sledge back up and returned to the work of pounding cinderblock into dust.

She twisted the base of the sonic two clicks, the top back by one like the Doctor had said. She pressed the button to check it, and the tip glowed purple while it made a deep gurgling buzz. She shrugged and stepped out of the alcove to look both ways. Thick cables ran from light to light in both directions, around the corner to her left, and off into the darkness to her right. She wasn't sure where to start, or how much cable he would need, but she finally decided to start at the closest light to the corner, then go off to the right until there was some natural break, or it felt like plenty. She turned left and walked to the corner, peeking around just to see whether there was an end in sight, but the cables went on from light to light into the distance. She reached up on tip toe and found the place where the cable connected to the light. She aimed the sonic and almost as soon as she activated it, the cable came loose with a startling spark.

The lights all up and down the corridor winked out, but the light from the Doctor's alcove remained. It provided Pandora enough luminance to finish her work. Rather than end up with many lengths of cable, Pandora removed the lamp assemblies from the wall. She made quick work of it and returned when she had enough cable to run from the alcove up to the street and back.

She found the lift stuck halfway up to street level and climbed up onto it with one end of the cable. The Doctor was in the alley tightening some bolts on a very homemade looking device. He looked up when she approached and said, "Just in time." He held out a hand expectantly. Pandora laid the cable in it, but the Doctor set it down immediately and said, "My sonic."

"Oh, yeah, of course," Pandora responded and handed it to him. "What is this thing going to do?"

The Doctor finished up with the sonic, then sat back on his heels and turned toward Pandora. "Well, I spent last night writing an article under an assumed name in an American scientific journal that debunked the 14% Apophis crash scenario. I used formulae to prove it that were so complex it will take several weeks for the best astrophysicists to discover how wrong it was. Next I wrote one in German confirming the American findings. Then I asked a personal favor of Phil Plait at Slate Magazine to talk about the 2029 date. Finally, I introduced a virus into the imaging software of the Near Earth Object telescope array that filters out anything with a magnitude less than negative three. Let's hope no one was looking at Venus at the time..."

He stood up and walked over to Pandora. "But," he said and put an arm around her shoulder, leading her out into the sunlight, "eventually, someone is going to notice _that_." He pointed into the sky about twenty degrees south of overhead and five degrees east. There in the bright blue mid-morning sky was a bright dot, just large enough to tell it wasn't a perfect circle.

"Whoa!" she said, feeling suddenly weak in the knees. "How long do we have, Doctor?" It came out as a whisper.

"That little dot will grow over the next couple hours until it fills the entire sky from horizon to horizon, but even then, when there isn't an inch of sky to see, it will still be another twenty-two point eight seconds before it hits. But don't worry, no one directly in its path will be alive to get smashed. Its friction against the atmosphere will set the air on fire and roast everyone instantly long before that."

"Don't be so flippant, Doctor. Everyone I've ever known is in the path of that thing."

"Then you see how important it is that we move fast, yes? Now, I left the jumper cables in my workshop. Connect them to your cables first, then to the high voltage terminals I excavated. Do _not_ touch any metal, right?"

"Yes Doctor." She went back to the stuck lift, but then turned and said, "Just tell me, this thing you're doing... It's going to work, right?"

"Yes. Absolutely," he said. "Well, high eighties percent-wise. Seventy-three at the least."

Pandora sighed and sat down on the edge, feet dangling above the lift. "Well, better than anything I've got planned." With that she dropped onto the lift and continued on below.

* * *

Once the machine was running, Pandora got even more anxious because she felt like they should be doing something, but the Doctor said they needed to wait. "Apophis needs to build up speed for this to work, and by my calculations, I have a window of two minutes and nineteen seconds between when it's going fast enough and when it sets the atmosphere on fire. Plenty of time. We still need to wait-" He looked at his watch. "One hour and thirty-seven minutes."

The two of them sat on the ground in the alley, eating cheese sandwiches and watching the dot grow in size. It was currently as large in the sky as the full moon, but rough, like a piece of volcanic rock painted white. Pandora found she couldn't take her eyes off it. "Since you and I can still see it, how do we know this thing's working?"

The Doctor set down his sandwich on a paper bag, dusted his hands off and cupped one ear toward the psychic field emitter he had cobbled together and hooked up to the city mains. "By that slight humming sound, and," he cupped his other ear toward the end of the alley, "by the lack of screams coming from everywhere else." He put his hand down and picked his sandwich back up. "If you'd like, I can smack you in the back of the head-"

"That won't be necessary," Pandora cut him off.

The Doctor smiled. He took two more bites, then shoved the rest of his sandwich in his mouth. He dusted his hands off again and stood up. "Well, I've work to do," he said around the mouthful. "I've got to turn a mass accumulator into a... What would you call it? A mass disperser, I suppose."

He jumped down onto the lift, but Pandora stopped him. "You still haven't told me what this is going to do. How are you planning to save us, 'cuz just making people not notice the bugger won't stop it from killing them."

"Oh, I thought sure I'd mentioned it at some point. I intend to let the asteroid pass harmlessly through the Earth," he said with a grin, then disappeared below ground.

"Oh," Pandora said to herself, nervously looking up at the enormous rock. "Is that all."

Ages passed with Pandora getting more and more anxious. At one point she walked to the end of the alley to get a sense of what the world outside was doing. Midtown traffic crawled along unaware of its impending destruction. A café across the way had some tables set out on the sidewalk, and the patrons were talking and laughing over their appetizers. A dog leashed to one of the chairs lay on the sidewalk with its head on the ground and its eyes rolling to watch the pedestrians pass by.

It seemed so wrong that nobody else felt the sense of panic she was doing her best to suppress. She looked back up despite the fact she was worried that others would notice and look too. Apophis was easily three times the size of the moon. She ducked back down the alley before anyone noticed her, or even worse, before she started yelling at everyone to _look up, for god's sake LOOK UP!_

She paced back and forth in front of the lift shaft willing herself not to check on him. Every time she thought of heading down there, she looked up instead and immediately regretted it. Apophis took up noticeably more space in the sky every time she did, and she was convinced that if she stared at it, she would see it move. That would have been too much for her though, so she looked away again.

Finally the Doctor climbed up onto the lift and handed the mass accumulator up to Pandora before climbing the rest of the way up. He had removed the dial from the device and the inner circuitry was exposed. There was a pair of locking pliers clamped to the centerpiece of the structure, and two of the alligator clips were stripped and braided together.

Pandora turned it over doubtfully and looked up at the Doctor.

He shrugged and took it back from her. "Sixty-eight, maybe."

The Doctor connected two of the clips to the power leads and the last one to a circuit board loosely connected to his telescope tube. He produced some duct tape from one of his pockets and attached the tube to the side of the psychic field projector, aligning it by eye. He stepped back and examined the result.

"Well?" Pandora said, "Turn it on!"

"Not yet. it's still way too soon," the Doctor said, biting his thumbnail.

"Are you nuts? The things enormous! If I climbed on the roof I think I could touch it!"

"Try not to think about it."

"Yeah, right."

"No, really. Don't think about it. You're standing next to a psychic field projector. Your thoughts are going to go into what it's projecting, and we don't want people thinking about that thing. Where does Arsenal sit in the ranking right now?"

"What? Oh, um, the season doesn't start until September."

"Really? Well, we'll have to go to a match then. How are they favored this year?"

"How do you know I even follow them?"

"There's a doodle of a cannon in nail polish on the back of your tablet. How are they favored this year?"

"I think we made some daft trades, and some of the players would do well to stay out of the headlines, but we've got a shot. In all honesty though, as long as we beat Chelsea, I'm happy."

The two lapsed into silence and Pandora found herself thinking of Apophis again. She tried to think of anything else to stop herself looking up, and said the first thing to pop into her head.

"Your tattoo - you must have had a chance to see it by now. What's it about?"

His left hand went reflexively to his right shoulder. "Right, you were guessing Celtic or Maori, but it's from a bit further off. It's circular Gallifreyan, the language of my people. A version of it anyway. It says, "Who are you?"

"Yeah? And what's your answer?"

The Doctor was quiet for a while. "I wish I bloody knew."

The sky suddenly grew dark overhead as the edge of the asteroid expanded across the sun. "Now that, they're bound to notice," Pandora said, squinting up until the sun fully disappeared behind Apophis.

"Fitting," the Doctor said with an ironic smile.

"What is?"

"Apophis was the greatest enemy of Ra in Egyptian mythology. Ra was the Sun god, and Apophis was a giant snake who would try to swallow the Sun each day. Today, he finally has."

"Funny. Are you going to zap it now?"

"Not yet, but soon. Just before it hits the atmosphere. It's moving pretty fast now." He walked to the device, gripping the pliers with one hand and steadying the barrel of the telescope with the other.

Apophis continued to grow larger in the sky. It was clearly coming at them at incredible speed, doubling in size every minute. The Doctor braced himself and adjusted his grip on the pliers. "Five, four, three, two, one!" He twisted the pliers hard clockwise. A mechanical whirring built up and grew higher in pitch.

There was a popping sound and the whirring slowed and stopped. "No, no, no, no!" the Doctor said and dug inside his hoodie for his sonic.

"What happened?" Pandora yelled, frantic.

"The flux melted!" the Doctor explained and pushed the tip of the sonic into the circuitry of the accumulator. The tip glowed blue and the device sparked. The Doctor put the sonic between his teeth and turned the pliers anti-clockwise. He then pulled the sonic back out of his mouth and twisted the top a click and touched it to the circuitry again.

Pandora watched Apophis grow closer. It nearly filled the entire sky. "Doctor!" she yelled.

"Not helping!" he yelled back without looking up.

He returned the sonic to his mouth, grabbed the pliers, braced himself and twisted again, hard. The device banged loudly and for a moment that looked like all it was going to do. Then the Doctor knelt down and blew on the circuitry. The whirring started back up and increased in speed.

A golden light shot out of the telescope tube and hit the asteroid. From the point where it hit, the golden light spread quickly across its surface, but the asteroid continued to accelerate toward them. It really did seem to be just over the buildings. Pandora covered her head and screamed, shutting her eyes.

There was no collision.

When she opened her eyes again, she couldn't see anything. She could still hear the device whirring. "Doctor!" she called out.

"It's working Pandora! We're inside the asteroid now!" his voice called out excitedly from nearby her.

Suddenly Pandora could see again. It was broad daylight and the Doctor was standing nearby, one hand on the telescope, and the other on the pliers. He slowly cranked the pliers to the left and the whirring sound grew slower and stopped.

Pandora looked around. There was a group of pedestrians standing at the mouth of the alley looking around, confused. Two of them shaded their eyes and looked into the sky, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Soon they dismissed the odd occurrence and continued on their way.

"Is that it? Are we done?"

The Doctor was disconnecting the power leads from the device. "We're done here," he said, "but I want to confront the Monk. If he's not back at his Tardis by now, he soon will be. He has to pay for what he almost did." The Doctor carried the cables to the lift and dropped them into the tunnel below then summoned the lift up to street level.

"I'll go with you," Pandora said. "I have a few choice words for him as well."

* * *

Five minutes and three seconds later, off the coast of Antipodes Island of New Zealand, the asteroid erupted from the ocean and rocketed into the late evening sky. The phenominon was witnessed by several individuals and even caught on cellphone video by a teen age girl partying on a friend's yacht. It will be played on newscasts around the world over the next several weeks with nobody able to explain what it shows, until the video is finally debunked as simply played in reverse.

The sightings prompted tsunami warnings up and down the East coast of the North and South islands, but the tsunami never came. No one knew it was because the asteroid never touched the waves, it passed through the sea without leaving a ripple in its wake.

Only one person understood what it meant, when her plane finally landed after more than thirty hours in the air. "He did it," she thought. "The Doctor actually did it."

People throughout the airport were fascinated by the story and were distractedly watching it on telly, making it easy for her to duck in through a baggage claim conveyor and bypass Customs with the stolen artifacts of English royalty.

* * *

The Doctor approached his Tardis when the park had cleared out that night. He stopped in front of her and looked up at the opaque windows. He managed a smile.

"I just wanted to let you know that I managed it anyway. Saved London, without your help. I can only imagine you knew I would. I can't really bring myself to believe you would endanger the people of this world to spite me. I think you love them as much as I do."

He lapsed into silence for some time, listening to the crickets chirping in the heat of the late spring night, and deep in his own thoughts.

"I think your still trying to teach me a lesson, and I'm wracking my brain trying to understand it. Is it that I can save people without you? Okay, turns out I can, but it was a close one. Maybe it's that I would still try to. Risking everything to save them, even after everything I've been through. And maybe that's true. I suppose I've been trying to deny it, but when push comes to shove, I do what has to be done. It's a part of me. I just wish the universe didn't shove me so often."

"Incidentally, when we went back looking for the Monk's Tardis, it was gone. I don't know whether that means he kept a spare dematerialization circuit around, or whether he just loaded it onto a lorry and drove it somewhere else. Either way, I'm sure I'll be seeing him around."

He stood trying to think of anything else he wanted to say, hands in his pockets, rubbing the Tardis key with one thumb. Finally he said, "Sorry I got so angry earlier and kicked you. I understand you locking me out. I suppose turn about is fair play, and besides, all's well that ends well."

With that, he turned and left.


End file.
